5 min readNoidaJan 29, 2023 07:22 AM IST
First published on: Jan 29, 2023 at 05:10 AM IST
In 2017, 17-year-old Ananya Dixit had cleared the NEET exam on her first attempt. After her first day of college, she wrote in her diary: “This is my first step of fulfilling my dream as a doctor.”
“But she never got that chance. It was only for seven days that she went to that college. Becoming a doctor was her dream ever since she was in the fifth grade. But she left us and never came back,” said her mother Shailaja, sitting in her study room in their Noida apartment in Sector 45.
On September 6, 2017, Ananya was found hanging in her hostel room at Shri Ram Murti Smarak Institute of Medical Sciences in Bareilly. The family has alleged it was not a suicide but a murder, and that there had been a bid to hamper the investigation.
This case has seen its fair share of twists and turns – two investigative agencies came up with different findings, one submitted a closure report while the other said it was suicide but booked two persons in the case. Now, more than five years later, the Supreme Court has ordered the CBI to investigate the case.
“Since the beginning, we have been demanding a CBI investigation. We are grateful that the Supreme Court has ordered it. I just want to know what happened to my daughter. We were intimidated, threatened by multiple officers. The institution never cooperated… the scene of the crime was manipulated,” alleged Shailaja, a school teacher.
“They even allowed her roommates to take their belongings. How can this be done before the investigation? They packed Ananya’s belongings and sent them to me. Shouldn’t the room have been locked till the investigation was over?” she said.
Anadi Dixit, Ananya’s father, an engineer, remembers the day clearly. After attending a conference, he was checking his office email when his phone rang. “Ananya’s friend’s father called me and said something had happened to her and that she had fainted. I called the college, but for a long time, they kept misleading me. I sensed something was off and angrily asked the principal – he gave me the most horrific news of my life. Why didn’t they call the family first?” he said.
“The day the incident happened, in the morning around 7 am, Ananya had spoken to her mother. She told her mother she wanted to talk to me. The next day was my birthday and I thought she wanted to talk about that,” he said, also expressing dissatisfaction with the police probe.
According to the chargesheet, Bareilly police had booked a friend of Ananya’s under IPC section 306 (abetment to suicide), and the then principal of SRMS, under section 201 (causing disappearance of evidence or giving false information).
Investigation had found that on September 5, 2017, a day before the incident, her friend allegedly called Ananya several times and they last spoke at 10.29 pm. After this, they switched off their phones. The friend switched on his phone the next day at 1 pm.
“He and his family were living in the same apartment complex as us in Noida Sector 62,” Anadi said. In April 2018, Anadi filed a separate complaint with police in Noida, who charged the man under the IT Act. Anandi alleged, “As I did not receive help from Bareilly police, I was forced to go to Noida Police. A case was registered against unknown persons at Sector 58 police station. After investigation, they found that he had deleted Ananya’s Snapchat messages and they charged him under sections of the IT Act.”
After an Allahabad High court order, the Noida Police case was clubbed with the main case. After Bareilly police filed a chargesheet in October 2018 and the CJM court took cognizance, the CB-CID started another investigation in February 2019. After a year, the agency submitted a closure report. The top court has noted that there appears to be contradiction in the two reports filed by the police teams.
“A young girl child has died an unnatural death while pursuing medical studies and two investigating agencies have given reports – one in the form of chargesheet arraigning two individuals as accused and the other filing closure report,” said the bench of Justice Aniruddha Bose and Justice Sudhansu Dhulia.
For the family, the battle for “justice” carries on. Ananya’s mother said she hopes this case will give strength to others to fight. “I just miss her presence so much. Our lives were centred around her; her absence makes me feel my world has collapsed,” she said.
Ananya's mother said she hopes this case will give strength to others to fight 
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